After doing some additional reading online, the solution that we found as the simplest for us -- and we are trying this out at the moment -- is to use the "Back up Content" button function in Blogger (found in "Settings" under the menu item "Other"), which backs up an entire blog into an xml file. That xml file can then be imported by drag and drop into a wordpress.com blog with the Wordpress.com "import" function (found under "Tools" in the WordPress.com user dashboard). Later added Note:Success! In just about 1/2 hour, this procedure was completed in importing nearly 1000 postings, comments and media to LawPundit WP at WordPress.com, where we will continue posting LawPundit posts in the future. For continuity, we will post at both locations until a final decision is made.

We have no idea who is in charge of the design of the new Blogger interface,
but it is hard to believe it is anyone who has ever blogged or understands much about blogging. More likely marketing types designing for ad placements.

The user interface has been over-simplified (dumbed down) to such a degree that it is virtually useless for practical serious blogging. The rationale appears to be to make Blogger better adapted to mobile use, a mobile world where ephemeral "non-content" and invasive advertising dominate.

In the new Blogger interface, Blog postings that do not have an embedded image get an overly large but meaningless alphabet letter assigned at the front of the title, letters which dominate the entire page to the detriment of far more important things, such as the actual name of the blogger or the full title of a posting.

Indeed, the posting blogger's name is reduced to only the first few letters of the name in tiny script, showing how much importance Google assigns to authors.

Moreover, get ready to click considerably more to find the same features that you once found and used easily and really need to blog effectively. Now these are all hidden behind a blank and blinding white interface that just takes up a lot of empty space that could be used for something sensible. Blank is blank.

On a scale of 0 to 10 with zero at the bottom, we rank the new Blogger interface at 0, a rank meaning "not worth the trouble", "forget it".

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

The traditional live celebration of the annual astronomical Summer Solstice (Midsummer) at the Stonehenge megalithic standing stones has been cancelled for 2020 by English Heritage, but, according to Robb Report, the event is nevertheless to be made available digitally for the first time ever by livestream. Let us all hope for good weather on June 21, 2020 and for millions of observers! Our "time" on Earth is, after all, measured by astronomical events, something often forgotten in our temporal era.

For background and astronomical speculations as to why Stonehenge was constructed thousands of years ago, see our

Thursday, May 14, 2020

This is a true story taken recently from the pages of life in the coronavirus era:

Young daughter, age 3, to mother: "I would like to see God".Mother: "God is not visible. No one can see God."Daughter: "Can one visit where God lives"?Mother: "No."Daughter: "Corona?"

!!! Whoah !!! Out of the mouths of babes....
Children grasp the concept of "social distancing" quickly
... and apply it universally.

Even if we universally practice social distancing, we remain players in a
world
in which everything is related to everything else, whether we like
it or not,
even things that are not visible to the naked eye, such as
COVID-19.

How can an invisible virus be reconciled with day-to-day reality in OUR universe
-- a universe in which we are neither outside looking in, nor inside looking out.
Rather, we are inside our Universe looking inside our Universe.
It remains an unsolved mystery that is at the root of science and religion.

As Giordano Bruno pondered, and we paraphrase here:
"If the world is a wheel within a wheel, and has no beginning or end, then where are we?"

Similar questions arise when confronted with the world's present situation.

""For the first time in its history, the Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments via telephone — not in-person — and allowing live streaming of its audio, another sign of the profound effect the coronavirus outbreak is having on our even most tradition-bound institutions."

"These memoranda provide a real-time snapshot of the significant legal questions affecting large businesses as a consequence of the COVID-19 crisis. Questions relating to the CARES Act and tax matters generate the largest number of memoranda, with at least 253 and 237 on each topic, respectively. (All counts are minimum values.) Employment matters generate more than 200 memos, while SEC issues and securities regulation concerns generate 159. Antitrust concerns generate 78 memos, insurance coverage 63, litigation concerns 55, and FDA regulation 49. International trade accounts for 38 memos, while telehealth issues generate 36. Questions related to force majeure, a doctrine that allows parties to walk away from contracts without being liable for breach, motivate 69 memos. Dozens more deal with location specific issues arising in New York, China, Italy, France, Germany, and the European Union."

If Paul Krugman supports the bill,
and economics IS after all the Nobel Prize winner's specialtywhere he is often right in his analysis
(while however too often erring on political topics),
then Congress AND Trump have pulled off a winner:
"not perfect, but pretty good".

"I'd say that it's about 75% a Democratic disaster-relief bill, with the other 25% a much more constrained Republican slush fund than we feared. It's light-years better than the things Trump was talking about just a few days ago."

Is the Coronavirus Bill a sign
that common sense is returning to Washington D.C. ?

Thursday, March 19, 2020

How do we individually and collectively survive the corona virus crisis?

To start, it is essential to keep the faith ... in humanity and in ourselves!

Humankind is a very resilient species.

Over many thousands of years of recorded history and surely for perhaps hundreds of thousands if not millions of years before that, our primate and human ancestors, male and female, have been facing and ultimately dealing successfully with all kinds of untold dangers, natural disasters, predators, calamities, wars, health plagues, economic and food uncertainties and physical and mental challenges of every kind and description.

How have we -- humankind -- done it?

In our present situation, when physical, bodily "social distancing" is being required for health safety reasons, it is however rather our tried and true close human "cooperation" on a massive local, regional, national, and even international, i.e. worldwide scale, that has led us in the past and will lead us now out of the apocalypse.

That long-term but undoubtedly successful total human community response will necessarily take time, but it will happen, and is happening, as sheer "necessity", an incredibly powerful, unrelenting, and unavoidable force, demands it, and as mankind's peoples, leaders and institutions rise to the occasion, as they must, for there is no other choice other than to prevail.

There is a saying that mankind moves only when it must, and right now, it must.

On a personal scale, each of us has to do what we can, each in our own little world, to help the larger world as a whole to conquer the dangers we face with the least possible damage to all.

For many of us, just staying at home and out of trouble is already a valiant contribution to the total effort.

Don't drop the ball in this regard. Your environment will not forgive you if you are self-centerdly selfish in a crisis. Fulfill your responsibilities, to yourself and to others.

As for financial problems, there is no need to panic. If you can pay your bills, pay them. If you can not pay your bills, well, then you can't. The world will not end as a result. You will have to be patient and it may not be easy. Don't give up. Keep trying to keep things going as well as possible. You are not alone. Many are in the same boat. Community help may be required.

Upcoming will be special money and credit solutions, payment moratoriums and the like -- because such emergency solutions viz. emergency money and cash measures are inescapable. The economy depends on people having money, so it will have to be provided -- one way or another -- at best, directly, and hopefully swiftly. Who owes what to whom can then be sorted out when the corona virus storm has passed.

Fear not!

for fear is not an option,

at least not for most of humanity.

The "fight or flee" instinct is a long-inbred characteristic of humans, and in the present case, we must fight rather than flee, since there is no safe haven to run to, except the temporary protection of isolation and quarantine. We can not run away from reality. It has to be faced. The game must go on.

Each of us thus has to do what we can, within our individual means and powers and within our collective, community possibilities and responsibilities.

Then our ultimate winning of the fight as humankind as a whole is assured.

There will unfortunately be individual losses and losers in this battle, but there always are. Minimize such losses.

At the peak of the Great Depression 87 years ago, President Franklin D. Roosevelt stated words in his first inaugural address that have become famous for their wisdom:

"[T]he only thing we have to fear is...fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance".

Roosevelt's wisdom is needed strongly today to counter the unparalleled mass hysteria of fear that currently grips the world because of the Covid-19 corona virus.

Measures are being taken worldwide by various authorities in all facets of human life that are inflicting far more damage on the world and its humans than the damage the corona virus itself has thus far caused.

Sunday, January 19, 2020

Color-Coded Performance Levels - The SportPundit FBS Final College Football Rankings 2019/2020 After Bowls and Playoffs. These levels provide what we think are realistic goals for teams in 2020/2021 to advance to the next level or two, if possible. Note the large 1 touchdown rating gap between the top four teams and the fifth placed team.

Schedule Difficulty (SD) is based on the Massey Ratings
-- but in many cases we have adjusted them and marked those by an asterisk *
(* = adjusted).
Schedule Difficulty stats are rough approximations - just compare the ColleyMatrix to see how much they can diverge.

NAYPPA = Net Average Yards Per Play Advantage - Calculation by SportPundit.AYPP = Adjusted Yards Per Play. The "calculation of rank" is made by taking NAYPPA minus the "calibration adjustment for schedule difficulty" = CSD (3 x SD divided by 100). We do all calculations in our head, which can be done swiftly, but there may be error as a result of doing things too fast, so we make no guarantees as to accuracy.

The system is not perfect! But it can give a good idea of the relative strengths of many of the teams without looking at the margin of victory or won-loss records against varied opposition and under various circumstances. Some placements are curious, but on the whole, the rankings can be quite useful.

SportPundit NCAA Division I FBS College Football Rankings 2019 after Bowls and Playoffs (rank is determined by AYPP, the adjusted yards per play rating).

Below is a comparison list of selected football seasons which shows -- in spite of the many changes that mark modern college football -- that NAYPPA (net average yards per play advantage, i.e. the difference between the ypp gained by a team's offense and the ypp allowed by the defense) has changed little over the decades in being an incomparable measure of a top team's football season dominance and ranking.

Nebraska Cornhuskers 1995 season
(ranked by many as the top team ever)+2.72 NAYPPA- In the regular season 7.2 yards per play on offense and 4.5 yards per play on defense, but that stat does not include the 1996 Fiesta Bowl in which the Huskers netted 629 yards on 83 plays = 7.6 yards per play while Florida netted 271 yards on 59 plays = 4.6 yards per play for a NAYPPA of 3.0, and that against the Nr. 2 team in the country. The Huskers punted once.
(According to our calculations, including the bowl game, the Huskers
gained 6748 yards on 938 plays = 7.19 ypp
and allowed 3506 yards on 785 plays = 4.47 ypp
i.e. +2.72.)

"The 1995 Nebraska squad has been voted as the greatest college football team of all-time in many surveys, including the all-time Sagarin ratings.[39]"
Nebraska beat Michigan State (6-5-1 overall) 50-10, "the most one-sided defeat in the
coaching career of Nick Saban, in his first season at East Lansing."
Nebraska beat Florida 62-24 in the Fiesta Bowl. Florida won the national championship the following year.

As written at the Wikipedia:
"Due to their performance against Florida as well as beating 4 teams that finished in the top 10 by an average score of 49-18, their consistent dominance (smallest margin of victory was 14 points), their record setting offensive performance, and their statistically impressive defense throughout the season, the 1995 Nebraska Cornhuskers are widely considered one of the greatest teams in college football history. The team set Division 1-A records by averaging 7.0 yards per rushing attempt and also by allowing zero quarterback sacks on the season. Noted for its strong special teams play, the team also connected on 13 of 16 field goal attempts, and it also tied an NCAA record by allowing only five punt returns (for a total of 12 yards) all season. The 1995 Huskers also averaged a victory margin of more than 38 points, the largest of any Division 1-A team since World War II, despite regularly resting their starters in the second halves of games. Averaging more than 53 points per game (including the bowl win), the team averaged 29.8 points per first half - a higher number than the per-game scoring average of many national champions, even including such modern champions as the 2006 Florida Gators, the 2002 Ohio State Buckeyes, and the 1992 Alabama Crimson Tide. Analysts often make comparisons to other recent highly-regarded champions, such as the 2001 Miami Hurricanes and the 2004 USC Trojans[4]. Such comparisons, as noted by the experts themselves, are nearly impossible to make, as rankings vary from evaluation to evaluation. The 1994 and 1995 Nebraska teams, which went a combined 25-0, remain the only undefeated - as well as the only consensus - back-to-back national champions since Oklahoma in 1955 and 1956."

Tuesday, January 14, 2020

SportPundit FBS Final College Football Rankings 2019/2020 Season After Bowls and Playoffs

YPPstats from cfbstats.comSchedule Difficulty (SD) is based on the Massey Ratings
-- but in many cases we have adjusted them and marked those by an asterisk *
(* = adjusted).
Schedule Difficulty stats are rough approximations - just compare the ColleyMatrix to see how much they can diverge.NAYPPA = Net Average Yards Per Play Advantage - Calculation by SportPundit.AYPP = Adjusted Yards Per Play. The "calculation of rank" is made by us in taking NAYPPA minus the "calibration adjustment for schedule difficulty" = CSD (3 x SD divided by 100). We do all calculations in our head, which can be done swiftly, but there may be error as a result of doing things too fast, so we make no guarantees as to accuracy.The system is not perfect! But it can give a good idea of the relative strengths of many of the teams without looking at the margin of victory or won-loss records against varied opposition and under various circumstances. Some placements are curious, but on the whole, the rankings can be quite useful.

SportPundit NCAA Division I FBS College Football Rankings 2019 after Bowls and Playoffs (rank is determined by AYPP, the adjusted yards per play rating).

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Responsible for Blog Content: Verantwortlich für den Inhalt:(required by German Law):Andis KaulinsGartenstrasse 1056841 Traben-TrarbachGermanyContact: first and last name dot-separated at gmail dot com

Both volumes have the same cover except for the labels "Volume 1" viz. "Volume 2".The image on the cover was created using public domain space photos of Earth from NASA.

-----

Both book volumes contain the following basic book description:"Alice Cunningham Fletcher observed in her 1902 publication in the American Anthropologistthat there is ample evidence that some ancient cultures in Native America,e.g. the Pawnee in Nebraska, geographically located their villages according to patterns seen in stars of the heavens.See Alice C. Fletcher, Star Cult Among the Pawnee--A Preliminary Report,American Anthropologist, 4, 730-736, 1902.Ralph N. Buckstaff wrote:"These Indians recognized the constellations as we do, also the important stars,drawing them according to their magnitude.The groups were placed with a great deal of thought and care and show long study. ... They were keen observers....The Pawnee Indians must have had a knowledge of astronomycomparable to that of the early white men."See Ralph N. Buckstaff, Stars and Constellations of a Pawnee Sky Map,American Anthropologist, Vol. 29, Nr. 2, April-June 1927, pp. 279-285, 1927.In our book, we take these observations one level furtherand show that megalithic sites and petroglyphic rock carvingand pictographic rock art in Native America,together with mounds and earthworks, were made to represent territorial geographic landmarksplaced according to the stars of the sky using the ready map of the starry skyin the hermetic tradition, "as above, so below".That mirror image of the heavens on terrestrial land is the "Sky Earth" of Native America,whose "rock stars" are the real stars of the heavens,"immortalized" by rock art petroglyphs, pictographs,cave paintings, earthworks and mounds of various kinds (stone, earth, shells) on our Earth.These landmarks were placed systematicallyin North America, Central America (Meso-America) and South Americaand can to a large degree be reconstructed as the Sky Earth of Native America."